1. Field of the Disclosure
The technology of the disclosure relates generally to the use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems, and in particular is directed to RFID-based systems and methods for automatically detecting, directing, and/or configuring the physical configuration of a complex system, such as a telecommunications system.
2. Technical Background
Typical telecommunications data centers include large numbers of optical and electrical cable connections that join various types of network equipment. Examples of network equipment include electrically-powered (active) units such as servers, switches and routers, and unpowered (passive) units such as fanout boxes and patch panels. This network equipment is often installed within cabinets in standard (e.g., 19″) equipment racks. Each piece of equipment typically provides one or more adapters where optical or electrical patch cables can be physically connected to the equipment. These patch cables are generally routed to other network equipment located in the same cabinet or to another cabinet.
A common issue in telecommunications data center management is determining the current configuration of all the optical and electrical links among all the network hardware equipment. The configuration of optical and electrical links can be completely determined if the physical locations of all connected patch cable connectors on installed network equipment are known.
Another issue is that some equipment is capable of being installed in any one of multiple orientations when only one particular orientation is correct or desirable. For example, a patch cable that contains a transmit optical fiber and a receive optical fiber needs to be connected to the corresponding adapter in the proper orientation or “polarization” so that the transmit/receive process can occur.
Information about the physical location and orientation of the adapters and their parent patch panels in data center cabinets is presently manually recorded and added to the network management software database after the adapters and patch panels are installed. This process is labor-intensive and prone to errors. Additionally, any changes made to the physical configuration of any network equipment must be followed up with corresponding changes to the network management software database, which delays providing the most up-to-date information about the system configuration. Furthermore, errors from manual recording and entry of configuration data tend to accumulate over time, reducing the trustworthiness of the network management software database. In addition, the need to connect a given connector or install a given piece of equipment in only one of a number of possible orientations also leads to errors in the system's physical configuration, as mentioned above. Finally, it is better to know of an incorrect connection as soon as it is made, rather than sometime later when a problem arises (e.g., loss of a connection or loss of data), and when the source of the problem is more difficult to diagnose.